“I assure you, sir, that I have the misfortune to suffer from asthma, and my doctor has ordered me to take whisky on these foggy mornings, that are so severe in this climate. I am a very temperate man. I need hardly say, sir, a very temperate man. A lady came in for a syphon, and I gave her one. She thought it was soda, and it was lemonade. It was entirely the lady’s error, and that seems to have annoyed the lady. It does annoy ladies, and she seems to have got the impression—of course, an entirely mistaken impression—that I was not, in fact—sober. Your Honour will know what I mean; but, of course, a mistake, a sad mistake, and the lady unfortunately sent word to my master, and he came down and was very violent, and threw me out of the shop.”
The defendant said the man was drunk, and proceeded to call witnesses. The lady was ineffective, but a working man called on subpœna and a very unwilling witness put the matter beyond doubt. We had no advocates, so I told him to tell his story in his own words.
“I dunno reely much aboot it,” he said, “I wor
passing shop an’ ’ad a bit o’ cough mysen, so I went in for twopennoths o’ balsam. An’ when I got in t’ shop I saw yon mon”—pointing to plaintiff—“leaning up agin them variagated decorated drawers like they ’ave in them shops, an’ I says to mysen, I says, ‘’Enery, you ain’t tired o’ your life yet, are you, ’Enery?’ An’ with that I cooms out wi’out ony balsam—an’ that’s all I know.”
The plaintiff, who had little dramatic instinct, insisted on cross-examining as to whether the witness was prepared to swear he was drunk, but the witness replied with true Lancashire charity and caution, “I ’oped as ’ow you was drunk, but, in coorse, you might ’a’ been taking poison.”
A very few months after I was made judge I got a homely rebuke from a suitor that led to an interesting reform in my conduct of affairs. A man was telling me in moving for a new trial that he had got in the County Court on the day of the trial too late for the hearing. I asked him why he had not waited until the end of the day and made an application to me.
“So I did,” he said, “but as soon as last case was over you jumped up and bolted through yon door like a rabbit.”
After that I made more dignified exits, and I also arranged a practice of waiting and talking to everyone who was left over and had anything to ask, so I am grateful to my critic. I used to have many strange applications for advice, some quite beyond my power of satisfying. For instance, a working man came to me once with the most perplexing problem. “I
want to know,” he asked, “whether I must call my little girl Ferleatta?” I spell it phonetically, as he could not help me in the spelling, but I fancy the real name may have been Violetta.
“What has happened?” I asked.